After long and terrible waiting I have just received, altogether, the mails of October and November.
I need not tell you what indescribable emotion seizes me when I read the letters of those whom I love so much, of those for whom I would give my blood, drop by drop; of those for whose sake I live.
Had I thought, darling, of myself alone, long ago should I have been in my grave; it is the thought of you, the thought of our children, that sustains me, that lifts me up when I am bowed under the weight of so much suffering. I told you in my last letters all that I have done, of all the appeals that I have again made for you and for our children.
If the light that we have awaited for more than three years is not shown now, it will shine forth in a future that we know not.
As I told you in one of my letters, our children are growing; their situation, that of us all, is terrible; the situation I am supporting only by supreme effort is becoming absolutely impossible to bear. That is why I have placed our lot, our children’s lot, in the hands of the Minister of War, asking that at last an end may be made of our appalling martyrdom. That is why I have again asked the Minister of War to restore to us our honor.
I await his answer with the greatest impatience, and I am hoping that this appalling torment may have at last an end.
I embrace you, as I love you, with all the power of my love, with all my tenderness, as also I embrace our adored children.
Your devoted
Alfred.
A thousand kisses to your dear parents, to all our family.